Former Bexhill student’s award for Doctor Who role

A former Bexhill College student is sharing a top award for his backroom role in a Doctor Who audio.

Benji Clifford worked as a sound designer on ‘Doctor Who - Absent Friends’ which this month won the BBC’s 2017 award for Best Online Only Audio Drama. The awards were announced as Peter Capaldi broke the news he is quitting as the Doctor.

Benji, who studied at Bexhill College and later graduated from the University of Brighton with a Television Production foundation degree, was responsible for mixing the audio, creating soundscapes and providing all sound effects.

He said: “I’m utterly thrilled that the audio has won the award. It’s a fantastic piece of drama, written by John Dorney, which touches on the subjects of mystery, grief and the consequences of time travel. It’s a privilege to be part of such a strong team and I couldn’t be prouder of everyone involved.”

About his university course, Benji, 25, said: “It was a great opportunity to explore the various avenues of working in the modern media; it enabled me to try my hand at a variety of skills and focus my interests on something that felt right for me.

“There was a great level of practical work in the course and as my time progressed, I found myself more and more drawn to the post-production/sound recording side of things (even at one stage composing the musical score to one of our productions).

“I’m grateful for my time at the University of Brighton and for the opportunities it has presented me with, both through education and also working in a professional capacity providing the university with corporate videos.”

Benji currently is working for the production company Big Finish Productions which focuses on officially-licensed audio dramas for both the BBC, ITV and other stations: “We produce audio dramas of such popular television programmes as Doctor Who, Torchwood, Stargate, The Avengers, The Prisoner, Survivors, Blakes 7, Dark Shadows and more.

“At the moment I’m working back-to-back with sound design/music and see no sign of stopping any time soon. I also co-host a weekly podcast in which we talk about our latest productions, interview the stars and interact with our listeners.

“My aims for the future are to try my hand at directing and also writing audio drama. I’m a huge believer in the medium and think that in this day an age of ‘on demand’ listening, audio drama is attracting more and more new listeners.”